The Lyon Sleeps Tonight

by Carter, Elizabeth Ellen

  When Opal returned his kisses measure for measure, his resolve crumbled. How could he possibly resist? She was temptation from the moment he saw her again.

  He ought to slow down and explain how he had come to this moment in time. It was clear she knew nothing of the incident with the Thuggee and the weight of responsibility and blame he had heaped on his own shoulders.

  But now the burden seemed lifted. And it was this woman before him who did it.

  Gratitude as well as passion fueled his kisses. He would go on kissing her for as long as she allowed it. But they never seemed to end. Opal’s arms twined around his neck, holding him to her.

  He started caressing her all over, the flare of her hips, her waist, until he found the underside of her breasts. She sighed into his ear, sending heat directly to his groin.

  I thought it would be amusing…

  To toy with and tease him as she had all evening?

  A little turnabout was fair play to his mind, to see how far she would let him go. His fingers brushed across the tops of her breast just as her lips pressed themselves on his neck. His lips followed his fingers. Opal pressed against him tighter. There could be no mistaking his arousal, nor hers as she pressed herself against him.

  He ought to say “no”. He ought to think for the both of them. But he was too tired to demand sacrifices of himself.

  “I want to make love to you. Now.”

  “Yes.” She raised her face to his and dragged a thumb over his lips before taking his hand. They left the little salon and she led the way down the deserted corridor to another wing of the building.

  Opal opened an unlocked door as, emerging from another passage was a woman, a servant, with her hair in a cap and a brown robe over her night rail. Opal obviously recognized her.

  “It is just me… just us, Themisto.”

  The woman smiled. “I wish you both pleasant dreams.”

  Before she turned away, Peter asked. “Where is our hostess?”

  “The Lyon sleeps, sir.”

  His body filled the door frame before he closed the door behind him.

  Peter removed his jacket without once removing his gaze.

  Did she still want this?

  Her answer was to loosen the stays of her own gown until it slipped and she could remove it over her head. After laying the dress over the chair, she looked back. His broad shoulders were bare – as was the rest of his torso, his shirt tossed carelessly across a dressing table.

  She took in his heated glare, feeling her body tingle, before the embers of desire ignited.

  Peter said nothing as he stepped further into the chamber. She knew she could turn him away with a word, but she could not. Would not.

  She closed her eyes and sighed just as he reached her, sliding his hand around her waist and pulling her to him.

  There was no need for words. He plundered her mouth savagely as he had done in the salon. She responded again, pressing herself against him, her arms caressing the warm hard planes of his back before working their way up toward his neck.

  No sooner had her fingers touched his nape, his own hands gripped hers to stop their travel. Peter broke the kiss.

  Opal saw the thin ligature line, a permanent scar around his throat previously hidden by his cravat. He stared at her, watching her take in the nicks and scars across his chest and stomach, scars that weren’t there six years ago.

  He was waiting to see if she would say anything.

  What was there to say?

  She leaned forward, bracing herself against his hands to kiss his neck. She could feel his pulse beat strongly beneath her lips, and she thanked Providence that he stood here before her.

  He did not object to the action, so she continued with her kisses along the column of his neck to the lobe of his ear. She heard him breathe harshly and a further jolt of desire pierced her. His hands released her wrists, sinuously sliding up her hands until their fingers twined. He captured her lips once more.

  Peter stepped forward, forcing her to step back lest she over balance. In just a few steps, she felt the bed covers against the back of her knees. He released her once more.

  He searched her eyes as if searching for final confirmation.

  Did she want this?

  The answer was yes. Of course, it was yes. She had told him every way she knew how. But perhaps words were not enough.

  She reached for the hem of her chemise and pulled it up over her head. It came off and she dropped it onto the bed behind her, leaving her naked except for the stockings and the garters at her knees.

  She had laid her heart and soul bare. It was only right that her body was laid bare also. She stepped forward into his arms. Her nipples grew hard as they brushed against the wiry curls on his chest. She pressed herself against him, feeling the hardness in the fall of his breeches, her body craving his touch, wanting to see him naked as she was now.

  There were no lovers’ words. There didn’t need to be. She watched him unbutton the front of his breeches and realized only now he had lost his boots at some point as she undressed. The ache between her legs was becoming unbearable. She brushed her own fingers against the spot and let out a sigh.

  Peter halted her actions and sank to his knees.

  What on earth?

  He looked up her with a knowing smile.

  “What—”

  He put a finger to his lips to tell her “silence” then touched her belly button and ran the finger down to finally caress the slit between her legs, gently coaxing the bud that was the center of her pleasure.

  He leaned forward and placed an open-mouthed kiss where he touched her, his tongue replacing her finger to tease her bud, his hands moving behind her to press her to him. Shocked as well as delighted, the tension in her body built to a crescendo that had her crying out his name.

  Shuddering, she was suddenly boneless, the bed catching her as she fell. She opened heavy lids to see Peter removing his breeches. Having reached the peak of desire once, she felt the stirring rise again at seeing him naked for the first time.

  She scooted up the bed, giving him room to join her, stretching as she did so, reveling in the feel of the crisp linen sheets on her skin, savoring the attention he’d lavished upon her. She blushed, feeling the heat of her skin as she looked unashamedly at him. There would be no naïve missishness from her. She knew what she wanted. She wanted him to touch her, fill her, own her body and soul.

  He stood there a moment. His eyes roamed her body and her confidence grew at seeing firm evidence of how much he wanted her. Yet, like too many times before, he held himself back.

  “Come to me,” she whispered. “Please.”

  At the words, something began to break in him. He joined her on the bed, giving her light but frantic kisses all over her face and neck.

  Peter wasn’t sure he was quite sober, although he knew he wasn’t as drunk as he could have been. He ignored the little voice that reminded him he’d been tricked into being here tonight.

  The beautiful woman before him was the intoxicant. She’d made him throw caution to the wind and forget his good common sense.

  The reserved, chivalrous side to his nature was subsumed by something more primal. The restraints were loosened. He gave in to his lust, feasting on her like a starving man – or a man near drowned. Whether she knew it or not, she had saved him. Now she was his, for better or for worse.

  He slid down the bed, licking and stroking as he went until he found her core, already hot from his earlier attentions. Her response to him was fresh and uninhibited. Every sigh and every moan of pleasure he elicited from her added to the urgency of his own need. But there was pleasure in the postponement. He would see her satisfied many times over before he entered her.

  The musk of her scent was more intoxicating than all the wine he’d ever consumed. He sampled it with his tongue, again and again, until she juddered and cried out again. All too soon, his own endurance had come to an end. He positioned himself at her entrance and slow
ly entered her, pushing past the barrier that marked her as a virgin.

  He stopped, bearing his weight on his forearms, to look at her. Her eyes were half-shuttered but her mouth was open. She was so beautiful, he just wanted to weep. Those full lips turned into a smile and her eyes opened wide and looked at him, directly into his soul.

  She sensed his hesitation and lifted her hand to cup his cheek.

  “I love you, Peter Ravenshaw. I always have.”

  How could his heart be so full to bursting so much, and yet he still breathed?

  He lowered himself until he could touch her lips, giving her the sweetest kiss he owned.

  He moved within her, and she around him finding the rhythm to the music only they could hear.

  If this was a dream, he did not want to wake up.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  After sleeping a full day away, Opal spent the day waiting for Peter to call.

  And the next day after that.

  Had he changed his mind?

  Opal refused to let the thought take root. Peter was a good man. He would honor their bargain.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling quite well?” her mother asked, not for the first time today.

  “I am quite well, Mother,” she replied, offering a smile and a pat of her hand on her mother’s knee. Her mild answer would have raised eyebrows just a few weeks ago, but it was the same one she had given each time, so the inquiries were becoming fewer and fewer.

  Outside, the early autumn morning was still bright and warm, leaves on the trees outside were beginning to turn. In a few weeks’ time, Parliament would be recalled, bringing in MPs from their country estates. Plans were already being finalized for the season and a new crop of young women would be making their debuts on the marriage market.

  She would not be a part of it. Not this year.

  For too many years, she had forced herself to entertain the thought of marrying someone other than Peter. This year, she may have done that.

  But then he returned.

  Peter returned and she was sixteen once more, filled with hero-worshipping adoration for him.

  But he was no longer the same man, and it took her longer than it should have to recognize it. She ought to have seen the sadness behind his eyes, seen the obvious way his gait was changed and how he favored his right side.

  He had always been thoughtful. Now, she found him to be even more so. His resoluteness and honor had matured, befitting a man who had seen things and done things not because they were easy but because were right.

  She loved this man, too, as she’d loved the boy, although she did not pretend to understand him. That was not something to be done in a matter of weeks. It would take a lifetime.

  Opal cocked an attentive ear as the butler answered the door but did not leap to her feet. Instead, she concentrated on her embroidery. That said, she would not be so dishonest with herself to refuse the admission that her heart skipped a beat at each knock, and she would strain her ears listening for Peter’s voice.

  The butler entered the drawing room with a salver. Opal glanced at it. There were no calling cards, only letters and the announcement that Miles was to have a private service with just their closest friends.

  She continued with her needlework, working a sinuous line of split stiches resembling vines that reached heavenward, only paying scant attention to her mother as she opened each letter and read them to her – a short letter from a cousin in Devon, a long missive from an old aunt in Bristol.

  “The family has received an invitation…”

  Opal listened to the sound of the envelope being opened.

  “The Earl of Harcourt is to wed Lady Amber Honeyfield!” her mother exclaimed.

  “She said ‘yes’! I knew she would.” Opal dropped her embroidery and rushed over to look at the invitation over her mother’s shoulder. “At least I hoped she would. Miles has worked so hard to win her back.”

  “Why he left her at the altar in the first place is something I’ll never understand,” her mother pronounced.

  Opal bit her tongue. She knew the full story but it was not hers to tell, although her mother would press for answers. Hopefully, she could be distracted by someone else’s wedding plans instead.

  A few minutes later, as if she’d wished his presence into being, Captain Peter Ravenshaw was being announced by Steadman.

  Opal and Peter rode toward Parliament Hill, chatting about inconsequential things. The easy companionship of their childhood days returned as though it had never left. And yet there was more than that, a frisson of desire between them that was anything but childlike.

  She reined in her horse to take in the view of a large pond, its blue surface reflecting the color of the sky. Lush green grass grew right up to its edge and beside it stood a beautiful mountain ash, whose leaves had turned a golden yellow.

  “Oh, I must come back here tomorrow, right at this very time of day,” Opal exclaimed. “Have you ever seen such vivid colors?”

  Peter dismounted and aided her from her horse. The way he held her waist had her heart beating in triple time. Now that she was safely on the ground, he seemed to be in no hurry to release her, and she was in no hurry to be released.

  There was a look in his eyes. Like he wanted to kiss her, but there was something else there, too – a look of mischief.

  “I remember another pond. Do you remember back in India? I saved you from drowning!”

  “You exaggerate, you only saved me from falling in. I remember it well. I wanted the lotus flower to paint.”

  “I wanted to kiss you even then,” he confessed.

  “I wanted you to kiss me even then.”

  I want you to kiss me now.

  She didn’t say these words aloud. She sensed it was important to Peter that he take the lead on their courtship. She had no doubt in her mind that this was what he was doing. He was courting her in the way he needed to.

  He lowered his head to hers. Their first kiss was tentative, as though they hadn’t shared so much more. The kiss deepened. Opal gave herself into it, turning to face him, to reach her arms about his neck.

  His lips left hers to whisper at her ear.

  “I didn’t want this to be a dream,” he whispered. “I wanted to be wide awake to kiss you, right here in broad daylight so you know this is real, that I am real, not something you conjured up.”

  Peter went down on bended knee and produced from his pocket an emerald ring, set in gold in an Indian design.

  “Opal Jones, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  Her heart swelled until it was near bursting. He watched her closely and she realized she had not given him an answer.

  “Yes! Absolutely yes.”

  Peter rose to his feet and managed to slip the ring on her finger a moment before their lips met. It was a kiss the likes of which she had never experienced, with such emotion poured into the caress. If not for the need for air, she might have gone on kissing him forever.

  “Did you know I was afraid of you?” he whispered.

  Opal tilted her head and frowned.

  “Of me?”

  Peter nodded.

  “I was afraid I could never live up to the image you had built of me. I’m just a man with feet of clay. I thought if… when… I stumbled, I would lose your love and, worse, lose your respect.”

  “I’ve learned love is not a fairy tale. It’s the day-to-day living and working together that makes love last.”

  “Do you love me?”

  She reached out and took his hand.

  “More than ever before. You’ve given me a gift… to let me see you as you are. It is one I’ll treasure a lifetime.”

  “So, I’m no longer your Prince Charming?”

  “Don’t look so hopeful,” she teased. “You are still my prince among men.”

  “I shall compromise. I will be more man than prince, but I promise to awaken you with a kiss every morning.”

  A shiver of pleasure went through he
r.

  “Every morning?”

  “And happily, ever after.”

  Brighton

  Six weeks later

  Opal stretched, the soft linen sliding across her naked form. How pleasant a dream was this? Slowly, she emerged from slumber, but the sound of steady rain outside lulled her to remain dozing.

  Still, she shuffled closer to the warmth of the equally naked body beside her.

  With a languid sigh, she rolled onto her side and snuggled up.

  “It’s raining,” she whispered.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” he whispered.

  “What time in the morning?”

  “I heard the hall clock chime ten just a few minutes ago. That must have woken you up.”

  Opal kissed Peter’s chest and sat up, keeping the sheet tucked up under her arms. Indeed, through the gap in the curtains, she could see the lines of water running down the window panes.

  He did not move from his repose. Instead, he stretched his arms up over his head, no longer self-conscious about his scars. The masculine display turned her insides to liquid fire. Did he know her body reacted in such a way?

  “I’m sorry to say that it is too wet to go out walking today,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll have better luck getting a glimpse of the Prince Regent’s Pavilion this afternoon.”

  “Hmmm.” Opal lowered herself back onto the bed and nuzzled her cheek against the soft, springy hair of his chest. “I suppose we should get up. We can’t stay in bed all day.”

  “Who said?”

  Peter turned, trapping her in his arms. She giggled and looked up to see the love she had for him reflected back to her in his sparkling blue eyes.

  “Who said? Certainly not I, sir,” she teased.

  Her hands moved up his naked back, caressing him, the gold wedding band on her left hand heavy and new.

  “Well, I’m sure you can think of something to keep us entertained.”

  He brought his hand to the back of her head, urging her down for an open-mouthed kiss. She delighted in his confident touch.

  “Since you had all the winning cards, I suggest a rematch later today when we’re dressed.”